Mourning and morning on the couch or- hodge podge and what...

LesbosOnTheCouch by Beth C, one of the Lesbos

Waiting…always waiting. Hurry up and wait. Get up and go to sleep. Wait for the living, hurry up for the dying.

I am now waiting for a visit from my son and his partner. I miss him so much. I can feel the pain in the hollow of my throat. We all know that pain. Every woman I know has at least one someone she misses that much. For me it’s my sons…and now my aunt.

When the people we love die, we don’t know when we will be with them again. In time, after a period of heart wrenching and wrenching pain, our bodies and souls ‘adjust.’ We miss them…but the pain somehow softens and becomes less sharp.

When there is someone we love who we can’t see, the pain is different. It is an emptiness that can get so wide and vast that it can take over all of who we are… (Not more, but different…and in my heart, that emptiness remains the same…)

That is one possibility. The other possibility it is what I have decided to attempt, right here, right now.

I miss my boys. I think of them every day. I wonder what they are doing. I pray that they are safe…and then I go about my day. I go to work. I come home from work. I eat allot of chocolate- chocolate chip ice cream….and inevitably, I sit on the couch.

One of my best friend’s younger brothers has just died suddenly. I want to send her my love and hold her tightly as she weeps her loss. I love you and I am so sorry for your loss, for his loss and for all of the pain…

But, forgive me, I need to get back to my couch…Life is so unpredictable. One day life is here. The next day life is not. It’s gone and- like energy transformed… that life that was here, we very suddenly don’t know where to look. We can’t see where it’s gone and we so want to find it…We all need to get back to the couch…There is too much dying. There is. There just is.

It is these moments that I find sitting on the couch, being with my love, just being the LesbosOnTheCouch, saves me.

We sit. We wait. We eat ice cream. We watch TV. We read a book…Do you all know that my absolute favorite way to fall asleep is to my loves’ voice as she reads to me…? You should all try it…

It works like this. I’ve hurried home from work…battling traffic and/or train traffic…I rush into the house, I’m home!!!! Where are you?

Here I am! How was your day?

Me - talk, talk, talk, talk….

My love, -Wow, you are amazing… (Yes, she actually says that TO ME!)

-I am so glad to be home, I squeeze her tightly as she comes to me and we hug…I almost strangle her, I am so glad she is here waiting…

And then we sit OnTheCouch, Lesbos that we are…and talk and eat…and watch TV…and then one of us begins to doze…Get up and go to sleep…come on, you can do it…Get up…Get to bed, we’ll go to sleep.

Well, we actually do get up off the couch and into bed…and no matter how tired I am and no matter how long we have been waiting to get into bed…My mouth and brain are suddenly and inexplicably wide awake….

Talk, talk, talk, talk, I shot the sheriff…How dry I am…My bologna has a first name….Country roads take me home…and can you believe that I tripped off the train and landed right in that poor guys lap?…and what am I going to do about this? And that? And more of this and that? Talk, talk, talk…

Sssssssshhhhhush …I’ll read to you…

Talk, talk and talk and various body parts and a nose…boo boo boo booby air, boo boo boo booby air…

‘’As the rain came down…’’

Rain? Rain? Did you say rain or train? It sounded like you said train. That would actually be better….

‘’As the rain came down in the dark city, ‘’

City, titty…itty bitty titty…She wore an itty bitty tiny weenie yellow….

“As the rain came down in the dark city, Antoinette realized for the first time that she was alone in the night.”

Alone in the night – why is she alone? This is a dumb book. Who wants to be alone in the night when they can be lying here in bed with us…? Whoever wrote this book is definitely…a teeny weenie titty….mmmmmmfff.

“As the rain came down in the dark city, Antoinette realized for the first time that she was alone in the night. She looked down at the street through her bedroom window …”

And another day is done. Soon it will be morning. Please I pray the day will be a day with just morning afternoon and night. Please no more morning mourning. Please.

For Gram - She's 102!

LesbosOnTheCouch by Beth C, one of the Lesbos

Today is my gram’s one hundred and second birthday. Today is also the day she is to begin her life in an old age home…at 102 years she is still beginning something new…I wonder if she knows either of these things. Does she know that she is 102 years old? Does she know she is moving to a home? (The last time she was hospitalized she thought she was on vacation at some nice hotel that had brought her breakfast all the way to her bed!)

My gram…she was the source of so much information. The only Yiddish I know, I learned from her. When I moaned that I was bored, she’d tell me, “Gai kochin uffen yam!” – Go shit in the ocean! 

When I wanted a sweet snack, she’d give me carrots.  She told me that white flour was bad for me and that eating too many processed foods would make me unhealthy and fat. She ate a bowl of vitamins with every meal, went to a chiropractor instead of a doctor to heal her ills, she swam all summer long in the ocean after walking 2 miles to get to the beach. When I moved to Israel, she started studying Hebrew – at the local college at the age of eighty! She worked, she studied, she read and practiced a ‘healthy lifestyle.’

She taught us that not being in motion –is death…

My gram folked danced. My gram went to concerts and plays. When I was in junior high school, she took me to my first off Broadway play…My gram considered herself an intellectual – and she was…Did this make her a bit cold? Probably, but she’s my gram. .. and she’s an hundred and two. The irony is not lost here—I can’t help thinking of my aunt, her daughter, dead of cancer at sixty four. Gram, at one hundred and two does not even really remember my aunt – or anyone else…and yet she lives…My Gram’s message of a healthy and vigorous life was embodied by my Aunt…who died of cancer at 64.

(I am making the sign of hold ‘the scales’ in my hand.) Irony. One hundred and two, and unaware – sixty four, and enjoying life and loving those whose life you’ve touched…The scales are never balanced. They never will be…

Back to my Gram. My last visit with her, some 2 weeks ago, we looked at a photo montage of all her years. Her parents, her husband (my Grandpop), her children (my mother and my aunt) and my siblings and I. She loved looking at the pictures. When I pointed her out in some of the pictures, she continued to stare and replied, ‘Really?’

Really Gram. That was you. You are the Gram. The Grandmother of three, the mother of two. Your husband died at 84 yrs. Your youngest daughter died just last month. She called you every day to tell you that she loves you. You said ‘Thank you.’ Do you notice that she doesn’t call anymore?

When I got up to leave, I also said, ‘’I love you.”

You said, “Oh. Thank you.’ And then you said, ‘’Why did you come here?’’

I said that I came here to see you and tell you that I love you. I told you that I came here because I love you.

You said, “oh. Really?”

Gram…Really. I love you. Ellen loved you. We all love you. Happy birthday. Enjoy your next beginning.

LesbosOnTheCouch -and I AM BACK

Hello all of my faithful LesbosOnTheCouch readers. I know that I haven’t exactly been writing quite what you had expected…Truly, I know that my family crisis’ and such aren’t exactly what you’d expect from LesbosOnTheCouch – but the fact of the matter is that we all experience these things- whether or not we are On The Couch. Yes, sickness and death and family crazy come even to those of us who sit On The Couch, even if we think that couch is so far removed and distant from said family. The truth is, it all finds you. It all just sneaks up and tries, without even knowing, to sit right down On The Couch, too.

Well, I am back –and yes, I am still haunted by the crazy – No, I don’t think I’ll ever get the voice of my mother at my aunt’s funeral out of my head, Who wants a lollipop? (REALLY)- Or my childhood glee at being told by my uncle that I can have all of the shoes in my aunt’s closet. (Again, REALLY) and on both accounts, it seemed perfectly normal at the time. –Or watching Jeopardy every night no matter who was in what hospital or hospice, receiving morphine, breathing her last breath, or dying alone.

So, here I am at 6 AM on Saturday morning, writing and thinking…so I am back –so what. What should I say –how I missed my love so much could no longer think straight (okay, now I am just being silly – ‘think straight’; I never think straight….)…

Maybe I should write about how sweet the spring and summer smell from my bedroom window, how lying in my love’s arms is the only place I want to be… about how lucky we are to have each other and how sad it is that some of us don’t even have that. Maybe I should tell you that chocolate ice cream really can make bearable most all pain – and if it doesn’t- then add a good shot of brandy and you won’t even remember what it is you were feeling miserable about in the first place (unless of course the next day you have to wake up and attend a funeral).

I could tell you all, I should’ve flown back earlier, I could’ve been there with her, I would’ve been a better person had I gotten there on time and follow this with,  If only I was there, if only I had stayed…if only…

I could tell you all of these things. These are what I try not to hear myself say when my mind and my heart converse at night. But really – what would that do for you –or me?…

Instead, I will honor her memory once more. Since my aunt was a teacher, I will take this to be her final lessons –some of the many lessons that she so generously shared with me throughout her life.

And the final lessons –ENJOY, LOVE and LIVE your life, each day as if it could be your last (because it could). Take all of the ‘could’ve, should’ve and would’ve’ out of your vocabulary and simply be in the moment, with your love, with your loved ones –friends or family, with your dog and with your ice cream. Smell the spring even if you’re sneezing and wheezing like crazy, eyes watering and nose running…just be.

She did.

For Ellen

LesbosOnTheCouch by Beth C, one of the Lesbos

I get off the plane – but it’s too late.

She was my aunt. She was my friend. She was my big sister and my confidant. For years we’d speak two or three times a week. She listened to me, she counseled me. She usually knew what to do and if she didn’t – she could comfort me and lend me her belief in me that I would find the way. When I told her about my new love and my decision to be the person that writes this blog – a lesbo on the couch – she accepted. Without question she accepted the woman of my dreams. When there was war and my child was thus engaged, my aunt would call me -and ask -and listen. She never pretended to be something she wasn’t. She never asked why I chose the paths I’ve chosen.

My boys knew her as my aunt and theirs. She never forgot a birthday, an anniversary a holiday. When I got here, at her house… going through her files, her possessions -I found her secret. Lists and notes and files – everything written down and meticulously documented. Every  happy occurrence and bit of news. When I started my new job, the time and place recorded. How I felt when I saw these things can only be explained as pure joy – simply and completely loved. Here was this person, my aunt, and me and mine – so important to her that all we’d done recorded and documented in such detail.

And when I found my poems – all of them from high school and beyond, the cards, the drawings and trinkets sent from far off and nearby – she kept them all. All the stuff from her grand nephews – every picture they ever made, every gesture they every sent. She kept it all…and all I could think was that I regret not sending more. She treasured us so much…so she said – and now I know.

I love my aunt Ellen and she loved me. I am lucky to have had her in my life. I am lucky she took me into her heart. I am blessed to have had her these past 49 years. The world was blessed to have had her 64 years. I miss her already. I will miss her always.

Far far away from my couch...My mission and why I didn't post last week.

LesbosOnTheCouch by Beth C, one of the Lesbos

My Sweet Lord what a week…I must admit, I have spent the past three weeks very far from my couch. I missed my couch so much that upon arrival and return to my humble home, the first thing I did after visiting my shower was sit in our couch until My Love pried me off and rolled me into bed, where I fell asleep even before I was laying down.

I missed our couch…our home.

I did spend some time sitting on another couch – I was visiting a sick loved one -and her couch, although quite soft, came with way too much baggage…Her couch came with a husband who wasn’t too thrilled that My Love came to help me through the tough time on his couch and had us both be introduced as nieces…but that being said- I wasn’t there to see him or to actually sit on his couch…I will therefore refrain from complaining about both him and his couch.

Instead I want to share the finer points of my visit…I want to tell you, because I believe this important and I want to encourage you, to know that it is not to be feared to the point of frozen immobility, I want you all to know that sometimes – if not always, this time can be one of opportunity for sharing in a very special love and sacred moment... I helped a special person in my life put her affairs in order and decide the road she wants to take on her journey from this world. This was and always is a difficult task, maybe the most difficult and meaningful task to share with another, to do for another. There are always other loved ones around not willing to accept decisions and methods, especially when they involve the end of a life on this earth. I believe with all my heart that when the time comes we should all have that final voice, the refusal of yet another chemo or trial drug, the decision to not meet another alternative medicine man or woman, the DNR…I believe this, but that does not mean that when I agree to help with these decisions I do not cry over what that means is down the road.

I also believe that once these decisions are made, ice cream is definitely the best alternative to all and any drastic and exceptional methods of prolonging life. Ice cream under these circumstances is the most wonderful tasting ice cream –filled with silliness and laughter and salty tears.

That brings us to silliness…laughter. What does it mean when we make jokes and laugh when someone we love is dying?  What does it say about us when we allow ourselves to fart out loud just because it can be funny and normal when there is nothing normal happening around the dying person? Her skin is yellow, her body is frail, her strength is gone, and her control is leaving. So my hiccups, my farts, my spilling a bit of water here and there, some crumbs and sacred chocolate ice cream on my shirt – that becomes the normal – the reminder that we all have moments that we are not in control…that losing control can also be a sign of life – of living still, a statement that this process can be normal – and maybe should be more normal. As painful as dying and losing someone we love dearly can be, there can be no denying that there is nothing more normal then life, as we have come to know it, coming to an end.

I write this with wet eyes. I am a believer. I believe in the One who formed the earth and all that dwell upon the land, the sea and fly through the skies. I believe in the One who is benevolent and caring and loving and good. I believe in the life after and reincarnation. I believe. ..But I will miss her…and holding her hand as she slips away from us, telling her I love her and watching her suffer the goodbyes, this is all difficult. And this is all a part of life and the cycle of life and the spiral of our soul to higher ground.

Night time dream.

I sat very quietly in the bright orange plastic tent, as the little boys with painted faces and silver hair laughed and screamed obscenities at the preacher who was standing on a plain wooden box. The preacher was from the past. He was wearing a straight black coat and white shirt buttoned up to his throat.

Nothing was right about the surroundings. The orangeness of the plastic was repulsive. Suddenly, he inhaled deeply and began to preach. His sounds were harsh, yet melodic and comforting. I had within me a strange desire to get closer to hear his words, but as I approached, the preacher slowly began to melt into the orangeness. His words turned sour — and all was wrong with his being. Even his own narrow tie seemed to choke the words from his mouth. Yet, motionlessly I sat and uttered not a word. I watched from within myself.

The orangeness was too bright. The little boys were too loud, their silver hair too gold. Music rocked loudly through the orange plastic tent. I began to laugh and dance and screamed obscenities at the man who was standing on an old wooden box. The preacher with all his sour goodness just melted and shrunk slowly, very slowly into the nothingness of the plastic.

I was sorry to see him go, although I wasn’t quite sure why. I had a feeling — a vague and distant idea that without him the tent and all would flare into flames and be undone. This thought, however, quickly vanished and as he melted away I became quite small with a painted face and silver hair. “Wait! Stop!” I shouted inside myself.

His disappearance cut at my soul. And my appearance cut even deeper. I danced with the little boys, I was a little boy, I screamed obscenities at all who entered our tent. I was now one of the boys.

What do you think?

Blue, blue, blue...RAWHIDE...

Forgive me my readers, today I am fuzzy and foggy and a bit dazed. In two days time I am making a family trip. I will be on a mission, a difficult mission. My mind is soft from planning and thinking of the days to come. So today, in this blog I am allowing myself to be in the here and now. ..Just here and just now.

As always, I am ‘sitting, sitting, sitting, sitting, sitting, RAWHIDE…!’

Okay, so maybe that’s an exaggeration…maybe I’m not always sitting…at least not just sitting. And sometimes I’m not sitting at all. Sometimes I actually walk or sleep or dance…Yes. Sometimes I dance. We like dancing. And it doesn’t have to be a special occasion- sometimes we can just dance in the living room when the music hits us- My love remembers to actually put the music on, while I am always surprised when the music shows up.

But right now I am just sitting. I am at the hairdressers, ’Lisa of London’- I love it! Here I am nowhere near London and yet, I’ve got myself my own Lisa of London and a true Londonese hairdresser! She’s great – perfect for me (except she’s too damn skinny!)

I come in with my love. I’m getting my hair a bit blue today. Yes, you heard right. Blue. One blue streak on the side, and I want a bit of a blue on the grey thing in the front. Blue. Yes. I wanted a dark, deep BLUE STREAK. Lisa just says, ‘’okay.’’

She asks me a few questions, where, how, etc. and then she does it. And I know once it’s done she'll love it as much as I do, just because I do. These are the people we all need in our lives. Those who love what we love about ourselves, as much as we do. I am very lucky. I have a few of those in my life. Most of my friends, after the initial shock of whatever crazy thing I’ve come up with, they say cool and love me and accept my weird. Some others, my sister, my aunts and uncles and even Lisa of London, they can accept me for me, and smile and love me as me. My Rabbi definitely fits into this category. He’s my wonder and guide. My eldest son – I think he’s a fan of mine. I think he likes having a mom who dreams of being a ‘dike on a pink bike’, who streaks her hair blue just because she feels like it; who sits on the couch and drinks beer with her friends; whose best friends are not only women her age but people of all ages…I am so lucky to have these people, these accepting souls in my life.

Maybe this is my fantasy that the people in my life are so accepting. Maybe I let myself believe they accept this and me and all of the me’s that are me. But, maybe it’s real. And if not, maybe it really doesn’t matter. Maybe what matters is that I believe that I am accepted, that I believe that I am loved. ..So, I see myself accepted I see myself loved and therefore I am happy – loved and accepted…

Did you know that blue in grey makes purple? I have blue and purple streaks in my hair. Maybe you are one of the people in this world who needs to ask, ‘’Why?’’ Maybe you are one of those who can't accept without understanding what is and why I've chosen to do this. Maybe it started when we were invited to a costume party and I couldn't decide what to be. I've always loved the color blue...the deep blue of the night sky, the darkness of the blue sea as the darkness of the nighttime reflects in the dark sea; dark blue sky: dark blue sea. So beautiful, so peaceful; I decided to go dressed as something blue. Something blue, something calm, something soothing, swishing like the waves on the sand; something blue, something calm, something dark, yet sparkling with the life of a million stars – Blue. Maybe.

The party is over and the blue was much quieter than I had intended. Too quiet and the Blue begged to come again. “Let me out with you, let me be with you, let me share with you – the Blue, the quiet, the calm…Let me be blue with you.’’

Maybe that is how it happened. Maybe those are the whys and maybe this is why I’ve chosen all that I’ve chosen. Maybe…

I do have blue and purple streaks in my hair. Did you know that blue in grey makes purple? Blue…and purple…I am loved. I choose to be happy, calm and soothed.